It is known to treat vascoconstriction (stenoses) with stents (vascular endoprostheses, vessel props) that are inserted into the stenotic area to keep the vessel lumen open. It is further known to use such stents for closing off vessel wall ballooning (aneurysms) or fistulae.
For the foregoing purposes, balloon-dilatable stents are traditionally used. For placement, these stents are crimped over a non-expanded balloon in a non-dilated state, moved to the treatment location by means of a catheter system and then, by expanding the balloon, dilated and thus anchored within the vessel. As there is no need for sophisticated supporting and guiding sheaths when placing balloon-dilatable stents in position, these stents can also be inserted into very fine vessels. It is, however, problematic that on account of their plastic deformability these stents can easily be compressed when external pressure is exerted on them. Another disadvantage is encountered when anchoring such a stent, by applying high pressure, the stent has to be expanded initially beyond the circumferential size it will finally have. Such an expansion beyond the required circumferential size may involve the risk of a vessel injury that may entail the formation of a thrombus.
Further, these traditional balloon-dilatable stents, due to their structure, cannot simply be introduced through an already laid micro-catheter and advanced to the implantation site but have to be arranged in the distal area of a specially designed micro-catheter in order to be moved to the implantation location by means of a so-called pusher. This process calls for a rather sophisticated catheter technology that is difficult to handle. Additionally, a stent, once placed in position, can only be relocated or retrieved with great difficulty, if at all. After a wrongly placed stent has been dilated it can neither be relocated nor removed as a rule.
It is further known to apply self-expanding stents that are made of shape memory materials. These stents possess a braid-like structure and are initially introduced and moved in a collapsed state through a catheter to the destination site where they expand either due to temperature changes (thermo-memory effect) or because the mechanical force exerted by the catheter (super-eiasticity) is no longer effective. Such stents, as well, require mechanisms for their introduction that are relatively expensive and space-consuming. The known super-elastic expandable stent requires the use of a supporting and guiding sheath that results in a relatively large catheter size and, what is more, also makes it difficult to introduce such stents through an already laid catheter.
For the introduction into small-lumen intra-cranial vessels, it is furthermore known to use stents made of shape-memory materials that initially are present in the form of an elongated filament. Not until the stent exits the catheter wifl it assume its tubular structure due to the change in temperature or because of the compression force no longer being exerted by the catheter.
It is known to treat aneurysms and similar diseases by using a stent consisting of two stretched out filaments that due to the mechanical constraint of a strand, are kept, by tension, in the stretched out form until when pushed out of the catheter, said constraint is removed and the strands assume the actual form of a stent. This structure enables the use of stents having shape-memory properties in vessels of very small lumen such as the intra-cranial and cerebral vessel branches.